BENGALURU: Jumbotail, an online wholesale marketplace for food and grocery products, has raised ₹90 crore in a Series B round of funding led by Heron Rock, with participation from Capria Fund, BNK Ventures, and William Jarvis, as well as existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital.
Jumbotail will use the fresh funds to grow its supply chain, integrate the Jumbotail platform with point of sale (PoS) machines and with farmers, onboard new fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands and hire new talent.
Jumbotail has about 20,000 kirana and small stores in Bangalore on its marketplace platform. It sources and sells products such as staples, pulses and other FMCG goods. It has a mobile app to order online and also offers payment and credit solutions to store owners.
The online marketplace also has a fully integrated supply chain network of its own and a last-mile storefront delivery service. Jumbotail had previously secured $8.5 million in its Series A round in 2017. It was founded in 2015 by S. Karthik Venkateswaran and Ashish Jhina. Venkateswaran has worked with online marketplaces such as eBay and Flipkart. Jhina, who has worked with Boston Consulting Group, also has experience in farming, agricultural production and supply chains.
“We have built supply chain and delivery capabilities to serve kirana stores at large scale with the widest selection of staples and FMCG products. The top FMCG brands and staples producers in the country work directly with Jumbotail as we provide them with capabilities that none of their other channels offer," said Jhina, chief operating officer, Jumbotail.
“Jumbotail’s full-stack approach to modernize general trade through cutting edge technology-driven supply chain, data-driven merchandising and credit is the most scalable way to revolutionize India’s grocery retail," said Sameer Brij Verma, managing director, Nexus Venture.
There are about 12 million kirana stores in India, controlling more than 95% of the $350 billion food and grocery market. Jumbotail is one of several startups in the business-to-business (B2B) wholesale supply space focused on kirana stores and other mom-and-pop store formats. Others such as ShopKirana and Udaan are also creating systems for easy access to wholesale procurement for small stores. Behemoths like Reliance Jio, Amazon and Walmart are also competing with tech startups to supply wholesale inventory to kirana stores.
